Pictures of your progress building the Wall Clock
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12 June 2013 at 9:47 pm #13461
Pendulum gives that little extra.I like.
You got me thinking now Dan about clock I am making.20 June 2013 at 8:17 pm #13858Hi Robin
I did add my clock to the gallery a few weeks back not sure at what frequency Joseph picks them up with 2,300 members I would expect there to be a lot more than say 15 photos in total in gallery,I would like to see a lot more. It would also be good if more of the members could be encouraged to post to the forums17 July 2013 at 8:22 pm #14970Well, time to add mine to the list! The clock, which is my real first hand tool project aside from a couple of practice boxes with *very* amateurish dovetails, was a great learning experience. It is *far* from perfect, but I am well pleased with it nonetheless.
The clock is made from lightly figured and curly American black cherry. The side rails are matched from the same board, with the grain gently curving in towards the center at the bottom. While I do like the look of the rounded over Shaker style top and bottom, I thought I would try to push myself a little bit and play with mouldings.
The mouldings are all handmade, with my first moulding plane. I honestly don’t know enough about the terminology to describe it properly in technical terms, but I just liked the profile, which is about 3/4 in wide and 5/8 in deep.
Some of you may remember me posting about some small arkansas sharpening stones and rods; they came in handy sharpening the complex profile of this moulding plane. Glad I heeded the advice of those that suggested I would find a use for them eventually!
The mouldings were a source of much trial and error and a fair amount of frustration. One thing I learned which was not immediately apparent is that it is nearly impossible to get a good fit with mouldings that have mitered joints if you try to use pieces from more than one individual strip. That is, if you intend to put moulding around the top of the clock, say a total distance of a little over 12 inches, you *must* cut one piece of moulding long enough to cut the individual segments from; the tiniest variations of thousands of an inch between two moulding strips can cause it to be *very* difficult to achieve a good fit using pieces from separate strips. Not impossible, but *difficult*!
It is also somewhat difficult to get a perfectly jointed edge on the back of the moulding as it can be a challenge to hold in the vise when the lower edge is very thin. With a great deal of trial and error as well as a liberal amount of colorful metaphors, I was able to eventually obtain a result I was satisfied with, although the joints are less than perfect. I chose to glue the mouldings only and used no nails, trading strength for appearance; I just couldn’t bring myself to put nails in it.
The finish is five coats of blonde shellac with a paste wax finish. I had some issues getting a perfectly smooth and even coat with the shellac, mostly due to a very cheap brush, I think. However, with some steel wool, I managed to smooth out most of the trouble spots and aside from certain angles in certain lighting, I think it looks very good.
Well, as Mr. Grohl says, “Now I’m done and on to the next one!”
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You must be logged in to view attached files.17 July 2013 at 10:07 pm #14987Chris I love it, and the mouldings are great.
Nice to see you trying to be a bit adventurous. 😉
I am close to glue up on my clock. Got to get clock first so I can cut hole in panel. 🙂18 July 2013 at 1:52 pm #15002Thanks for all the kind words, guys, only problem now is deciding what to tackle next!
20 July 2013 at 11:09 am #15086Finally finished my wall clock. I used some pine I had left over from another project and it worked very well. I used some amber shellac, I love the way it looks, but it is not the easiest stuff to work with. Definately is going to take some practice to get that nice smooth coat the first time. I spent a lot of time touching it up to try to get it nice and smooth, still isn’t perfect, but my daughter says it looks more like an antique now, lol.
Overall I am pleased, it was a fun project.
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